Help with these alignment specs...

[bleda2002]

"Do you have a big deadspot, or do you just wish the steering was heavier?"
Its a little deadspot, which isn't so bad, but I think a little heavier would help with overcorrect. My biggest complaint of steering wheel off/pull to the right seems to have gone away..I even checked the centering in the garage and seemed pretty straight.

Try a fox ats then

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[Wheelin98TJ]

The Mopar arms are a decent solution, but a set of adjustable arms will give you more flexability to dial in your caster.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

What's to go wrong on an axle swap?
If it was mine and the dealer wanted to swap because it was out of spec, I'd say go for it - that way, if anything DOES crop up in the future, it's in specs. (and they have tried to address it)

You have a camber difference of .8
.5 can be noticeable and cause a pull.

Here's from an alignment site -
Camber has about twice the effect caster does on causing a pull. On most setups, 0.3-0.4 degrees difference in camber side to side (Cross-Camber) will be noticeable

Here's another example from another alignment site (I could go get my college books but am feeling lazy tonight. I've done hundreds of alignments over the decades but still defer to my college books now and then.)
If your car has .5 degrees negative camber on one side and 1 degree negative camber on the other side it will pull to the .5 degree side (since -.5 is more than -1). Or if it has 1 degree positive camber on one side and .5 degrees positive camber on the other, it will pull to the 1 degree side (since 1 is more than .5)

Note that both use examples well under .8 degrees difference - one says .4 is noticeable and another says .5 degree difference can cause a pull.

I see no reason to not let them put a new truck into factory specs - especially since it's THEIR suggestion.
I'm afraid I'd tell them to get it ordered if it was mine.
I'd not want a pull at month 37 and then have them tell me sorry, it's not under warranty.............
IF it's out of spec it's out of spec - why resist making it correct while they are willing??

THEN if you have issues with steering or pulling or whatever, well..........

 

[johnh442]

"that way, if anything DOES crop up in the future, it's in specs. (and they have tried to address it)"
Very good point. I don't want them to dismiss any future concerns because "I refused to let them do the specified repair..."

I am still waiting to hear back from the dealer. I did PM @JeepCares and they said my case was closed, but offered no feedback as to what the resolution/outcome should be.

The other thing that comes to mind WRT LCA, is that the arms are same length on every model...if I had a Sport and bought a 2" lift, they'd tell me I need the longer arms. However, from what I read a Mojave is 2" lifted/taller than other models (1" vs. Rubi)...so shouldn't that need the lifted arms? I suspect that the one size fits all worked well enough to not add to manufacturing complexity.

 

[bleda2002]

"that way, if anything DOES crop up in the future, it's in specs. (and they have tried to address it)"
Very good point. I don't want them to dismiss any future concerns because "I refused to let them do the specified repair..."

I am still waiting to hear back from the dealer. I did PM @JeepCares and they said my case was closed, but offered no feedback as to what the resolution/outcome should be.

The other thing that comes to mind WRT LCA, is that the arms are same length on every model...if I had a Sport and bought a 2" lift, they'd tell me I need the longer arms. However, from what I read a Mojave is 2" lifted/taller than other models (1" vs. Rubi)...so shouldn't that need the lifted arms? I suspect that the one size fits all worked well enough to not add to manufacturing complexity.

Close enough is exactly what they did. The caster spec range changes between a sport and a rubi or Mojave etc. It was a lazy way to reuse the same arms on everything.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

That's interesting as I have alignment sheet images from a Rubicon and from what's listed as "Sport/Overland" and one is 4.0 to 5.5 and the other is 4.0 to 5.7
Not much of a difference at all.

 

[bleda2002]

That's interesting as I have alignment sheet images from a Rubicon and from what's listed as "Sport/Overland" and one is 4.0 to 5.5 and the other is 4.0 to 5.7
Not much of a difference at all.

But the Rubicon will always fall in the low end of that range, and the Sport in the higher end of that range with some wiggle for manufacturing tolerances. The fact that the sports range is higher means they know the sports will consistently fall in that upper range.

 

[johnh442]

Heard back from the dealer. They spoke with Jeep. Jeep wanted them to verify the calibration on their alignment machine and retest my Gladiator. Well maybe not surprising, as I was thinking it'd be worth double checking on a different alignment rack before tearing things apart; and I figured Jeep would want it or a factory rep inspection anyway before doing thousands in warranty work.

 

[johnh442]

So they put it back on the rack, and talked to jeep and now the Cross Camber/Camber readings are in spec...go figure. Sheet's in the jeep but Caster actually went down a few tenths...

So one thing I did that helped, was "prime" the steering stabilizer, go back and forth lock to lock several times quickly. That did make a difference!

However:

Try a fox ats then

I just put this on last night. I have to fine tune the adjustment, I think its at 12, and at slower speeds I felt a slight difference, but on the highway ... holy crap, drove much different much, much less effort to keep straight. Big difference.

I have the Mopar LCAs to go on next, but I'm going to wait a few days to tweak the fox ats and make sure its all good. Just changing one thing at a time.

 

[centra28]

Good thread, thanks for all of the info and keeping us updated.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Apparently the equipment mentioned above was not 100% calibrated - and of course a lot depends on the person hanging the equipment on the vehicle. I've seen the same vehicle with different readings simply by changing the person doing the work. In this case - one has to wonder about the calibration or the person doing the work as now as if by magic, the caster difference has changed.


Stabilizer/damper is not for play, loose steering, shimmy, pull, etc.
People in Jeep forums (the arm-chair suspension experts and engineers) keep touting the stabilizer as a fix.
Its not a fix for anything. But no one believes engineers because Jeep people keep repeating the lines "a good quality stabilizer will help a lot".

This is what a suspension designer and engineer has said -
On a properly designed and well maintained system, a damper's purpose is to mitigate the effects of bump steer and the sudden encounter of unexpected objects, such as hitting a rock in a trail at 50 miles per hour. On an improperly designed and/or poorly maintained system, a damper is used as a crutch to mask issues with suspension and tire errors.

 

[johnh442]

Apparently the equipment mentioned above was not 100% calibrated - and of course a lot depends on the person hanging the equipment on the vehicle. I've seen the same vehicle with different readings simply by changing the person doing the work. In this case - one has to wonder about the calibration or the person doing the work as now as if by magic, the caster difference has changed.


Stabilizer/damper is not for play, loose steering, shimmy, pull, etc.
People in Jeep forums (the arm-chair suspension experts and engineers) keep touting the stabilizer as a fix.
Its not a fix for anything. But no one believes engineers because Jeep people keep repeating the lines "a good quality stabilizer will help a lot".

This is what a suspension designer and engineer has said -
On a properly designed and well maintained system, a damper's purpose is to mitigate the effects of bump steer and the sudden encounter of unexpected objects, such as hitting a rock in a trail at 50 miles per hour. On an improperly designed and/or poorly maintained system, a damper is used as a crutch to mask issues with suspension and tire errors.

Makes me wonder as well..its a very slight change +0.1* caster both sides, to 4.8, Camber on the left went from -0.7 to -0.3, so now cross camber is -0.5 (right in spec, almost magically?), toe is now 0.05 on both sides.

WRT to the stabilizer, as I said at low speeds, not sure I noticed much, but at Highway speeds its quite noticable. Michigan roads are generally crappy, and it seems Jeeps in general, especially IMO with M/T tires get sensitive to road deformations. The amount of effort needed to highway drive is much less with the Fox ATS vs. stock. That alone, IMO, makes it worth it...before adventures at 70 required near constant corrections, this smoothed it out nicely.

My steering isn't loose at all, even slight turn of the steering wheel moves the wheels, and no shimmies either. There's still a very slight pull to the right but this could be road crown, as it not really apparent on left lane highway driving.

Not sure on the LCAs though, I've heard they add +2 which would put me at 6.8, which seems high.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Makes me wonder as well..its a very slight change +0.1* caster both sides, to 4.8, Camber on the left went from -0.7 to -0.3, so now cross camber is -0.5 (right in spec, almost magically?), toe is now 0.05 on both sides.

WRT to the stabilizer, as I said at low speeds, not sure I noticed much, but at Highway speeds its quite noticable. Michigan roads are generally crappy, and it seems Jeeps in general, especially IMO with M/T tires get sensitive to road deformations. The amount of effort needed to highway drive is much less with the Fox ATS vs. stock. That alone, IMO, makes it worth it...before adventures at 70 required near constant corrections, this smoothed it out nicely.

My steering isn't loose at all, even slight turn of the steering wheel moves the wheels, and no shimmies either. There's still a very slight pull to the right but this could be road crown, as it not really apparent on left lane highway driving.

Not sure on the LCAs though, I've heard they add +2 which would put me at 6.8, which seems high.

If your roads are rough - and I don't doubt it seeing some of the roads in this country - you may be suffering bump steer - a good one would help there. If the thing wants to follow deformatoins, cracks, worn spots, etc...... that gets tiresome after a while.

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